Most users may be pleased with Windows adding the word “shortcut” whenever they create shortcuts to their files, because this way they can tell easily what is a file and what is a shortcut.

Personally I consider this an annoyance, because the little arrow is enough to let me recognize a shortcut.

To make Windows create shortcuts without the word “shortcut” in their name, open the registry editor, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer and change the “link” to 00.

If you don’t know how to use the registry editor, paste this code on a simple text document, save it as whatever.reg and run it to make the necessary change in the registry automatically. You need to restart Windows to activate this change.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"link"=hex:00,00,00,00

It works also on Windows 7.